Help:Gadget-HotCat

HotCat is a JavaScript extension of the MediaWiki user interface. It augments the category bar with quick links to remove, change, or add categories. It can be activated in the "Gadgets" tab of Special:Preferences.

Browser compatibility

Additionally, the script has been tested on all skins using Firefox 2.

Like for many other scripts at WikiMedia projects, a DOM Level 2 compatible browser is a prerequisite. Ajax is used for the category suggestions.

If Javascript is disabled, the script will of course not do anything. If Javascript is enabled, but Ajax is disabled, HotCat can still be used to add, change or remove single categories, but it won't be able to propose suggestions for categories, and the multi-change mode won't work.

User interface

Whenever a page is loaded, HotCat looks for the category bar. If there are visible categories, it adds links to easily remove, change or add categories. Due to space constraints (and also to avoid internationalization issues), these links use symbols instead of text:

The new links are:

"(−)" after a category: when clicked, the category is automatically removed.

as of Version 2.2 "(↓)" after a category: when clicked, the input field is opened, and a list of available subcategories is displayed.

as of Version 2.2 "(↑)" after a category: when clicked, the input field is opened, and a list of available parent categories is shown.

"(+)" at the end of the list of categories: when clicked, an input field to add a category is opened.

"(++)" at the front: when clicked, enters multi-change mode, allowing modifying more than one category.

Note that the "(↓)" and "(↑)" links are shown only for existing categories. Red-linked categories, i.e. non-existing categories, can have neither parent nor subcategories, and thus showing these links wouldn't make sense. Also note that it is possible that only the input box is shown when these links are clicked, but no list. That indicates that this category does not have parent categories or subcategories, respectively. See also "Search engines" below.

If HotCat can detect that a certain category is not in the page text itself but was transcluded onto the page from a template or other transclusion, it will not add these links. Only categories that are present in the wikitext of the page itself can be modified through HotCat.

Removing a single category

To remove a category, simply click the "(−)" link next to the category name. If the page does indeed contain this category, HotCat will remove it automatically. It will

open a new window or tab in your browser with the current page opened for editing,

hide the whole edit form, so that you cannot edit,

edit the page to remove the category, and

save the page.

Changing a category

To change a category, click the "(±)" link next to the category name. This will open the input box where you can enter a new category name.

Adding a category

To add a category, click the "(+)" link at the end of the category line. This will open the input box where you can enter a new category name.

Input box

The input box of HotCat is very simple: a text field to enter the new category name, an indicator icon, and an "OK" and a "Cancel" button.

The indicator icon tells you whether or not the category name you've entered exists. A no icon means that there is no such category yet. You can still add the category, but it will show up as a red link, and you should, after having added the category, click that red link and enter a brief description and parent categories to this new category. An yes icon shows that there already is a category with the name you've entered.

When you start typing, HotCat will display a list of suggestions above or below the text input field. Clicking one of these suggestions will copy it into the text field. Double-clicking a suggestion is the same as clicking once and then clicking the "OK" button: HotCat will add the double-clicked suggestion automatically. The suggestion list is populated by the search engine chosen in the selector between the list and the text input field.

Sort keys

You can even give a sort key together with the category. Just write after the category name a vertical bar ("|"), followed by the sort key under which the page shall be sorted within that category's list.

If no sort key is given, HotCat will preserve an already existing key if a category is changed.

as of Version 2.2
To explicitly remove a sort key, just write a vertical bar ("|") without anything following it:

Input "Foo" will add a new category "Foo" without sort key, or change an existing category to "Foo", preserving the sort key.

Input "Foo|Key" will add a new category "Foo" or change an existing category to "Foo", using the given sort key "Key" in both cases.

Input "Foo|" (with a trailing vertical bar) will add a new category "Foo" without sort key, or change an existing category to "Foo", removing any sort key the changed category might have had.

Search engines

Between the suggestion list and the text input field, there is a search engine selector to select the search method which populates the suggestion list. HotCat supports any number of search engines.

The MediaWiki servers offer two general ways to search for categories. The first is through the page list of the wiki. This list is always up to date, but is strictly alphabetic and also case-sensitive, so "similar" suggestions (for instance, suggesting "Bláhnjúkur" when "Blahn" was entered) are not shown. The second search engine is the search index that is also used by the "search" box on all pages. It does find "similar" suggestions and is not case-sensitive, but as its index is updated only at intervals, it may not show newly created categories.

HotCat by default combines these two search engines to get the best of both worlds: similar suggestions and newly created categories. However, to do so, it must make two requests to the server. Normally, that's not a problem, but if it turns out to be too slow on a slow connection, you can use the engine selector to choose which search engine you want to use. It is also possible to configure which search engine HotCat should use by default.

as of Version 2.2

In addition to these general searches, HotCat also provides two additional, more specialized search engines. A first one can be used to search for subcategories of the category given by the current input. A second one returns the parent categories of the category given by the current input. Both engines may return empty results, in which case no suggestion list is shown. (For instance, if the current input is a name of a non-existing category, or if a category has no subcategories). In this case, the search engine is automatically reset to the default search engine after the first non-deleting input.

Note that there is no way to "page" through a list of subcategories. The script just tries to get as many subcategories as it can (normally at most 500, the limits for administrators are somewhat higher). Subcategory queries can also be slow if a category contains many items (not just many subcategories), and the input field is made non-editable for the time of the request. If it doesn't become editable in reasonable time, just click cancel.

Category redirects and disambiguations

HotCat tries to automatically resolve redirects between categories when the "OK"-button is clicked (or when a suggestion is double-clicked). If the selected category X is a redirect to another category Y, HotCat will automatically add the category Y instead of X.

Similar processing is done for disambiguation categories. If HotCat detects that the chosen category is actually a disambiguation category, it will present again a suggestion list, this time filled from the categories being disambiguated. If, for instance, you entered "Buzet" as the category and then clicked "OK", you would see the suggestion list, as these are all the categories mentioned at the Category Buzet.

Note that this suggestion list has no search engine selector, as it is not the result of a search. The suggestions are taken directly from the links on the disambiguation category Buzet.

Control-clicking

Normally, you would want HotCat to automatically process your category changes. However, sometimes you might want to check what HotCat does before saving the modified page. To do so, use "control-clicking". Hold down the Control key (marked Ctrl on many keyboards; on German keyboards, it's often Strg; on the Mac, use the Cmd key) while clicking with the mouse on the "(−)" link, or on the "OK" button, or while double-clicking a suggestion from the list. In that case, HotCat will still open the page for editing and will modify it, but it will neither hide the edit screen nor save it automatically. Examine the changes at your leisure, and then click "Save page" to commit the changes.

Making more than one category change

The user interface of HotCat is minimalistic on purpose and geared towards making interactions simple and fast. When you just click on a "(−)" link to remove a category, the edit is executed right away, and likewise when you submit a single category addition or change.

Still HotCat fully supports changing more than one category at once. If you click the "(++)" link at the beginning of the category line, HotCat will enter its multi-change mode. The "(++)" link is replaced by a "save" button, and all changes you make from now on will be written to the page only when that button is clicked. Initially, this button may appear disabled. It is enabled only when there are indeed category changes that need saving.

This multi-change mode is also entered automatically if you have one category input box open and, while it is still open, add, change, or remove another category.

In multi-change mode, submitting a category change or removal will not perform the edit immediately. Instead, the change will only be reflected on the screen, allowing you to make more category changes. HotCat will add "(×)" links after each changed category. This is an "undo" link; it'll undo the last action on that category. Category removals are indicated by striking through the category name.

as of Version 2.2 Unless overridden by a user configuration, HotCat will also highlight unsaved category changes by changing the background of the category link.

Once the "save" button is clicked, HotCat will make all the changes, and then opens the page in an edit screen, showing the changes made. The changes are at that point not yet saved! Review the changes to make sure that the script did what you intended it to do, and the submit the edit like any other edit you'd make.

Note that while HotCat normally automatically submits single category changes, it will never do so when operating in multi-change mode. It will always open a screen showing the changes made, which you should review before submitting the edit manually.

User configuration

Some aspects of HotCat can be configured by the user. All these configurations can be done by adding a few lines to your commons.js allows the gadget to work independently of the skin selected.

The user may change the behavior of HotCat when making a single category change. By default, HotCat automatically saves such edits. If you'd rather not have that and prefer to see the edit screen after HotCat has made it changes, add the following to your skin-specific user JS:

The user may define the default search engine that HotCat shall use to display the suggestions. Possible values are "pagelist", "searchindex", or "combined", corresponding to the three implemented search engines.

as of Version 2.2 The user may determine the background color HotCat uses to visually mark unsaved category changes in multi-change mode.

<source lang="javascript">
JSconfig.keys['HotCatChangedBackground'] = 'yellow'; // Or any other valid color specification.
</source>
or
<source lang="javascript">
window.hotcat_changed_background = 'yellow'; // Or any other valid color specification.
</source>
The default is '#F8CCB0', a light salmon pink that was chosen because it isn't used in any of the skins deployed at WMF sites and thus really stands out. If you don't want any background highlighting, set it to 'transparent'.

as of Version 2.2 The user may suppress the "(↓)" and "(↑)" links. Most of the time, these are not needed because the suggestion list is shown automatically when a category is modified, and the subcategories or parent categories can then be obtained via the search engine selector. However, there's a caveat: if there are no suggestions, the list and the selector may not be shown after all.

as of Version 2.3 The size of the suggestion list is configurable from five to 15 lines:

<source lang="javascript">
JSconfig.keys['HotCatListSize'] = 10; // Or any other integer value from 5 to 15; default is 5.
</source>
or
<source lang="javascript">
window.hotcat_list_size = 10; // Or any other integer value from 5 to 15; default is 5.
</source>

as of Version 2.4 HotCat can be configured whether or not single-category changes should be marked as minor edit. Up to version 2.3, all single-category changes were automatically marked as minor. As of version 2.4, there is a configuration setting for this. It can be set site-wide by setting HotCat.single_minor, for instance in the /local_defaults configuration file (see below). Users can configure this setting for themselves, possibly overriding the site-wide default configuration setting for this.

as of Version 2.7 (2011-05-30) Normally, HotCat respects the user's watchlist preferences. In particular, if the user has set the "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" preference, categorizing a page through HotCat will put the page on the user's watchlist. If a user wants to use this preference in general, but have it not apply to categorizations made through HotCat, the user can do so by defining a configuration setting:

If this setting is false (the default), HotCat will respect the preference settings for adding pages to the watchlist. If this HotCat setting is true, it will never add pages to the user's watchlist.

The user may also change some aspects of the display of the interface using monobook.css or other skin-specific CSS (eg. vector.css).

as of Version 2.2 The links to modify categories (i.e., "(+)", "(−)", etc.) are enclosed in a <span> with a CSS class named "hotcatlink". Users can use this class to style the links as they like. For instance, to reduce the font size of these links to make them smaller, one could use the following CSS code:

<source lang="css">
.hotcatlink {

font-size: 80%; /* Or some other value */

}
</source>

To change the color or these links, one might use something like

<source lang="css">
.hotcatlink a {

color: brown; /* Or any other color specification */

}
</source>

Or one could highlight these links when the mouse hovers over them:

<source lang="css">
.hotcatlink a:hover {

background-color : #87CEFA; /* A light blue */

}
</source>

Localization

HotCat uses only a few texts for some of its buttons, plus a few other texts for its edit summaries. The button texts can be localized by placing the localizations in appropriate subpages of MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js.

Put only the messages that you see translated in a localization file here at the Commons. Other messages for edit summaries and so on belong into the /local_defaults file at your wiki (see below). Edit summaries should always be in the wiki's main language, even if the user's interface language is set to something else, so that other contributors have a chance to understand what the summaries mean. By putting translations for the edit summaries in /local_defaults at a foreign wiki, that wiki can customize the edit summaries in any way without changing the English default messages here at the Commons.

As of Version 2.17, HotCat supports complex plural forms in its HotCat.messages.multi_change message. (That is one of those that belongs in /local_defaults, as it is used in edit summaries.) Its default value (in English) is "$1 categories"; the "$1" is replaced by a number strictly greater than 1. For most languages, simply translating this string will be good enough. However, for languages that have several plural forms such as the dual, this may be insufficient. If your language has several plural forms, you can set HotCat.messages.multi_change to an array containing the various forms as strings (don't forget to include the "$1" as appropriate in each form). The array must be set up as is appropriate for your language's implementation of mw.language.convertPlural(). You can check that e.g. in the MediaWiki source code. On older MediaWiki installations that do not have mw.language.convertPlural(), HotCat will simply use the last element of the array.

Note that if you want to be sure that mw.language.convertPlural() exists, you should make sure that the "mediawiki.language" module is loaded (it doesn't appear to be a default module in MediaWiki 1.19). To do so, set up your gadget definition for HotCat in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definitionon your wiki as follows:

Installing HotCat on another wiki

There are two ways to use HotCat on another wiki: either copy the file and install it locally, or hotlink to the Commons version and only do localizations locally.

If you copy HotCat, you have the advantage that all code resides locally, and no script imports from other domains will occur. Also, you can modify your HotCat as you see fit.

If you include HotCat via hotlinking, you can be sure to always have the most recent version of the gadget, but the script will be loaded from a *.wikimedia.org domain (that is, you have to enable cross-origin resource sharing in your server for it to work). Also note that HotCat has been developed and tested on WMF sites. If your wiki uses a skin that significantly differs from the WMF skins, HotCat may not work out of the box. In that case, copying HotCat and modifying it locally as needed would be the preferred method. But for WMF sites, hotlinking to the Commons version is certainly a viable approach.

HotCat should work in all skins that are part of MediaWiki and that are in use on the WMF projects. It may or may not work properly on other custom skins. HotCat does not depend on jQuery. It also does not depend on the JSconfig stuff from our MediaWiki:Common.js; that is completely optional, and HotCat can be used and configured without it.

Copying HotCat

If you want to install HotCat as a copy on another Wiki, follow the procedure outline here.

Enable the API on your wiki. You don't need to enable the write API. $wgGroupPermissions["*"]["read"] may be set to false if you have a private Wiki (one that allows reading only if logged in).

Go to Special:Preferences on your Wiki and check the gadgets section. HotCat should appear there. Select it and save your preferences.

Done.

If you want to include HotCat on a public WMF Wiki (Wikipedia, Wikinews, or other WMF project), you may skip steps 1 and 2.

HotCat makes use of jQuery in a few places, but can also run without jQuery being present. To start itself, HotCat uses either jQuery(document).ready() (preferred), or the old addOnloadHook() from wikibits.js. If your wiki provides neither, you'll have to change the startup of HotCat as appropriate for your wiki. As of version 2.16, HotCat does not depend on ajax.js anymore.

Using the Commons version of HotCat on another wiki

If you want to set up your wiki to use the Commons version of HotCat directly ("hotlinking"), follow these steps:

Make sure the server has the appropriate cross-origin resource sharing settings enabled

Create a local page "MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js" on your wiki with the contents of MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js.

Set up that local "MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js" as a gadget.

Write a local file "MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local_defaults". In that file, modify the settings and messages in the HotCat object as appropriate. (Translate the messages into the wgContentLanguage of your wiki in that file.)

Optionally, write local files "MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/lang", where lang is some language code ("en" for English, "fr" for French, and so on). In those files, localize the messages, tooltips, and search engine names to the appropriate language for users having wgUserLanguage != wgContentLanguage.

That's it.

Up to and including Version 2.3

Note that translations are always read from the local wiki. But of course, you can "redirect" that to the Commons, too, by writing a local "MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/lang" on your wiki that just uses importScriptURI again to get the Commons version of the file, if it exists.

If you do hotlink and you do translate the HotCat interface (messages, tooltips, engine names) into a language for which we here at the Commons do not have a localization, it'd be nice if you also notified us to import that translation. You can also get it done by directly copying to "MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat/lang", where lang is the language code of that language (if you're a Commons admin). If you're not an admin here at the Commons, copy your localization to "MediaWiki talk:Gadget-HotCat/lang" here at the Commons and add {{editprotected}} to notify us to set up the system message. Thank you.

as of Version 2.4

You can make HotCat also load the translations of the user interface from the Commons. To do so, just set the variable window.hotcat_translations_from_commons to truebefore including the HotCat script from the Commons:

// Then import the script from the commons, as in the first step.
</source>

The /local_defaults file is, of course, always read from the local wiki.

As of Version 2.4 you can also, if you hotlink, switch off HotCat on the upload form (by default, it is active on the upload form). To switch it off there, just include the line
<source lang="javascript">
HotCat.upload_disabled = true;
</source>
in your local configuration file (/local_defaults).

As of Version 2.5, HotCat incorporates a "blacklist" that can be used to disable certain categories in HotCat altogether. Blacklisted categories cannot be added, removed, or changed through the user interface of HotCat; blacklisted categories do not show up in the suggestion list, and if entered manually, the "OK" button of the editor is disabled. Trying to submit a change from an existing category to a blacklisted category is treated as a cancellation of the edit; i.e., the original category is preserved.

The blacklist is a single regular expression that should match blacklisted category titles. If your wiki has no blacklisted categories, leave HotCat.blacklist set to null. To enable a blacklist, set it to a meaningful regular expression. The English Wikipedia uses HotCat.blacklist = /\bstubs?$/, blacklisting all categories ending with the word "stub" or "stubs". You can set the blacklist as appropriate in your /local_defaults configuration file.

The English Wikipedia blacklists these categories because they are normally added through templates. HotCat already did not allow modifying such categories prior to V2.5, but it was still possible to manually add such categories through HotCat.

Running code once HotCat is fully initialized

There may be rare occurrences where you want to run additional, own code once HotCat has been loaded and been fully initialized. Before version 2.14, this need had not come up, and it was possible only using more or less ugly hacks.

As of Version 2.14, HotCat provides a hook to register code that shall be executed once HotCat itself is fully up and ready. The global HotCat object exposes a function runWhenReady(); it takes one parameter, which is a function. All the functions registered through runWhenReady() will be executed, one after another, once HotCat has finished its own setup. If HotCat is disabled on some page, or cannot start up itself, registered functions will not be called. If HotCat is already up and running, registering a function will execute it immediately.

This can be used to run your own code that relies on HotCat being fully up and running. If you hotlink the Commons version of HotCat, register your additional functions at the end of the "/local_defaults" configuration: that's one place where you can be sure that window.HotCat exists and is defined.
You might do the following to register a function:

<source lang="javascript">
// At the end of MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local_defaults:
window.HotCat.runWhenReady(function () {

$('#catlinks').css({'backgroundColor': 'pink'}); // Horrid; just as an example. Assumes $ is window.jQuery.

});
</source>

$('#catlinks') will find the <div> containing the categories. Since HotCat may add its own category bar if there is none (for instance, on Special:Upload), you couldn't run this code in a normal "document ready" hook: it might not find the bar added by HotCat if it runs before HotCat is started up. That's a typical use case for HotCat's runWhenReady() hook.

If you don't hotlink but copied the HotCat code to your own wiki, you don't need to use that mechanism. You could add your own special code wherever you thought it was appropriate, for instance, at the end of MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js itself. If you still would like to have your runWhenReady-functions separate from the main HotCat code, you'll have to find a place where you can be sure that window.HotCat exists, so that you can actually call window.HotCat.runWhenReady() to register your functions.

Here at the Commons itself, code that wants to use window.HotCat.runWhenReady() also must be in a place where window.HotCat is defined. You can be sure that this object exists if and when the gadget has been loaded, so you might try using

// Check first that the gadget has been or will be loaded at all: mw.loader.using will load it if it
// isn't already loaded (or loading), and we don't want to load it for users who haven't enabled it
// at all.
mw.loader.using(
'ext.gadget.HotCat'
,function() { window.HotCat.runWhenReady ( doSomethingOnceHotCatIsReady ); }
);

}
</source>

Note that mw.loader.using() works (currently) only with module identifiers, not with URLs.

With jQuery

If you do have jQuery in your environment (as is the case on the WMF wikis), there is a simpler way: HotCat triggers a custom event on the <body> element when its setup is completed. You can just register an event handler for that event:

This is the preferred method; using an event handler works without having to find a place where window.HotCat is defined. Note that if you only register an event handler, it will not be called if HotCat is already up and running. HotCat triggers this event only once. Using runWhenReady(), your code is executed even if HotCat has already started up.

Intercepting the page edit HotCat will make

HotCat internally uses a form to submit its category edits to the servers. As of Version 2.15, HotCat exposes this form such that user code may intercept the edit.

The form has the ID hotcatCommitForm, and by registering an onsubmit event handler on the form, you can intercept the edit and modify it before it is finally sent to the servers. You can even block the edit, if you so like.

Perhaps the simplest way to register an onsubmit handler is using jQuery:

If your event handler returns false, the form submission will be aborted; the edit will not be sent to the server. Note that you must use jQuery.delegate(): HotCat creates this form dynamically when it starts up, so a simple $('#hotcatCommitForm') might not yet find the form.

If you don't have jQuery, or you don't want (for whatever reason) use jQuery.delegate(), you should install your onsubmit handler inside a runWhenReady() hook.

The hotcatCommitForm has the same structure as a normal edit form: it has a a textarea named wpTextbox1, a summary named wpSummary, and so on. Your hook can modify the form in any way it likes, but it can, of course, also break the form completely, causing the form submission to fail. If you use the jQuery method shown above to register your event handler, the variable this will refer to the form itself inside the event handler.

The following example shows a possible use of this: make HotCat auto-save always, even if multiple categories are changed:

$('body').delegate('#hotcatCommitForm', 'submit', function () {
// The variable "this" refers to the form. Its fields can be accessed directly, e.g.
// this.wpTextbox1 gives you the textarea containing the page text of the edit.
var submitType = this.wpDiff;
if (submitType && (!this.oldid || this.oldid == '0')) {
// Switch form submission from diff to save. Don't do this if "oldid" is set to anything but '0':
// that indicates an edit conflict with yourself, and in that case you really, really do want
// to see the diff!
this.wpEditToken.value = mw.user.tokens.get("editToken");
submitType.name = submitType.value = 'wpSave';
}
return true;
});

});
</source>

The default implementation of HotCat does not auto-save when multiple categories are changed to give the user a chance to check the edit and back out if it isn't what was intended. With the above event handler installed, edits made through HotCat will always automatically be saved directly, so use this with care!